Poor Mum, thought Madge. Here we all are with fresh eggs every day for breakfast, lovely chicken curry for lunch and even roast beef sometimes for dinner, but then I suppose we do have to go without shampoo.
Madge read on and was pleased to hear that Ernest Bevin, the Minister for Labour and National Service, had announced plans which would eventually lead to military demobilisation. If that is true, then I think we really must have the Boche on the run now.
The letters cheered Madge up no end. It also gave her a lift that just as she put down the last of the letters she looked up to see Phyllis Yearron for the first time in weeks. Different shifts on different wards and a different social life meant their paths hadn’t crossed.
‘Phyllis! How well you look!’
‘Thank you, Madge, and you. How have you been?’
The two chatted for a while, although Madge didn’t want to ask if rumours about a failed relationship for Phyllis were true so she changed the subject and told her just how much she had appreciated the gift she had given her of the silver hairbrush.
‘It is so beautiful that even Ahmed is impressed and loves to dust and polish the shiny silver surface. You know, one afternoon I actually caught him looking at himself in the mirror side before giving his hair a good brushing!’ Phyllis clapped her hands in delight as she laughed her head off at the thought of Madge’s bearer posing with the hairbrush.
Just then Vera joined the table.
‘Phyllis, I bet you that Madge hasn’t mentioned a word about the real story involving her hair?’
‘Well, Madge has told me all about the coconut oil,’ she replied, ‘and I’m so impressed with the way her hair looks I’m going to try it myself.’
‘Yes, but I bet she didn’t tell you where she got it from!’ Vera said with a wink in Madge’s direction. She snorted and then, obviously deciding not to embarrass Madge too much, asked, with a mischievous grin, if the kite hawk incident had been discussed and began to sing ‘Pack up all my cares and woe, here I go swinging low, bye bye blackbird.’
The happy trio wandered back to their bashas and Madge prepared for another night shift with a degree of trepidation because she was worried about the badly burned soldier. He had been under sedation, but as she arrived to begin her shift she discovered he was awake and seemingly alert.
‘Oh, hello there,’ she said to the soldier. ‘How are you feeling this evening?’
‘A lot better than yesterday and my hearing is starting to come back,’ he said. ‘Although apart from a loud bang and a multi-coloured flash I can’t remember anything else.’
The incident that had left him dreadfully disfigured had also rendered him almost completely deaf for more than forty-eight hours. All he could recollect was advancing, very carefully, through a thickly forested area of jungle and following instructions from his sergeant to stay ten paces away from the next man in case a mine was triggered. That advice almost certainly saved his life because when the explosion came, whether it was from a mine or a booby trap, the soldier to his left took the full blast and was killed instantly.
Madge listened without passing comment as she changed the dressing on his hands as well as wiping away sweat that had formed on his brow. The facial disfigurement, appalling as it appeared to be, would heal in some form or another, although it would take months, or even years. In Professor Tommy Kilner’s plastic surgery unit Madge had been taught to try and make an assessment of the emotional condition as well as the physical damage when someone had been injured in this way. The services section of Stoke Mandeville hadn’t exactly been overstaffed and there were times when Madge had run four and five wards at night on her own, but in comparison with the number of nurses at 56 IGH it was light years ahead. She wanted desperately to stay with the corporal, but others needed attention as well so she had little option but to move on after doing her best to make sure he was as comfortable as possible.
There was no such thing as a ‘front line’ in the brutal confrontation in the jungles of northern Burma, but there had been a notable change in the type of patients arriving at the hospital, who were increasingly suffering from combat injuries rather than disease. The success of the 14th Army in pushing the Japanese back, deeper and deeper into Burma, was remarkable but it was being accomplished at a cost that included massive extra pressure on hospitals and already overstretched nursing staff in particular.
Madge fervently wished there was more help available on that very busy night and her wishes were answered almost within an hour when the Padre made his first official evening visit to the hospital and dropped by to say hello, and then have a chat with the dysentery-riddled Gurkha.
‘I’m so sorry for turning up after visiting hours again,’ said Rev Davies, who had been at 68 IGH since early that morning. He made it clear he wanted to be a hands-on padre and was well aware of the unique pressures nurses faced at night. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked.
From the moment she had seen him standing on the veranda soaked to the skin after marching through that raging storm Madge had instantly liked the caring and courteous new padre. ‘Actually, we do have a new arrival who has terrible facial injuries after having been caught in an explosion. I’m worried about him. The soldier he was with was killed instantly and he’s beginning to show signs of stress. Do you think you could spend some time with him?’
‘Of course I can. Just point me in
